Ridiculous question about living in London

[Skunkandnancy]

I’ve just come back from a few days in London. We stayed in Paddington (Sussex gardens), just across the road from the station.

I LOVE London and when I get back I’m always a bit fascinated and think about it a lot. Where we stayed there appeared to be ‘normal’ flats just along from Sussex Gdns where people were just living.

I know it sounds absolutely ridiculous but I can’t get my head around being able to live right in the middle of London like this. Surely it must cost a fortune. It was noisy at night (all night partying it sounded like) so how do people just live alongside this.

We walked up Whitehall, around Covent Garden, Fleet Street, St Paul’s etc and am just fascinated at the thought that people live amongst this. I look at people on the tube and imagine just being able to travel around like this so easily.

London history is so fascinating too, so much to see everywhere. Do ‘ordinary’ people live right in the centre like this? How is life? I bet it must be amazing 🤩

Ha, I always think that too when I visit. I assume they are just very wealthy people or people who live in social housing with managed rent?

I used to live within 10 mins of Hyde Park. I loved it. People can take anywhere for granted though and it is noisy and busy. Didn't realise how noisy it was until I went back to visit. Couldn't live there again!

Everywhere seems amazing when you're on holiday! Every time I go away I think oh how wonderful it would be but people who actually live on Greek islands are not lounging on the beach all day and romanticising the culture.

London is an amazing place to live in loads of ways, it also has a lot of deprivation and social issues for those who are less well off. There are areas of pretty grinding poverty right next to extreme wealth. Tbh if you live in noisy, crowded social housing in central London you are probably working long hours and scraping by, not wandering around Covent Garden with stars in your eyes. 😂

Nobody lives in London. Trained actors commute in from the Home Counties each day to make it look populated. The panic around recent rail strikes mostly relate to the risk of the international community becoming aware of this large scale deception.

I used to work near Oxford Street and one of my colleagues lived 5 mins walk from the office. He paid a fortune in rent for a tiny place but he loved living in the centre of London!

We live in a neighbourhood which is very wealthy and has almost a village feel to it in parts, however a ten minute walk and you’re in a deprived and dangerous neighbourhood within the same borough.

Areas like Notting Hill, Hampstead Heath, Chelsea, Fulham etc as well as some central London areas would have you think only wealthy or ‘comfortable’ ones live in London.

Sshhh 🤫

I lived just off Marylebone High Street for a while. Housing costs were high but so are the salaries. It’s great to have everything on your doorstep.

But sound proofing is a must.

My dd said this when we went, there was a prep school next to where we were staying in very central London and she was utterly fascinated by the little girls coming and going to school, she said imagine going to school in a house in London ! 😂 I’ve had friends who live in London and been to see them and it’s more like suburbia - think it was Eltham my friends lived - and they had a car and a pretty boring house and I thought ‘I wouldn’t pay through the nose to live here’ (no offense perfectly nice area but it’s not like living within 5 mins of buckinghan palace ?!) but the flats you see like literally behind tower bridge or the prep schools next to buckingham palace, to me it seems so exotic and exciting !

I lived in London for a few years in my late 20s. Most of my work colleagues (City lawyers) lived very centrally. I worked on Fleet Street and some walked to work. I lived in Zone 3 as we were tightwads.

My DH grew up in zone 1 near Russell Square, went to school in old street. He was in council housing. His parents both live in zone 1 now still. We live zone 3 and he thinks it's the sticks haha.

He just thinks it's normal to be able to walk to Covent garden haha.

I lived in a few halls of residence in central London when I was at uni.

Initially, it was great. Actually, it was always great, but there are odd things about it.

The strangest one was the year I spent on Oxford Street. You can’t actually walk up it during the day because it is so busy but, at night, it is completely empty - beautifully lit, but deserted. You would be woken by some kind of military exercise on horses (all lovely, of course), and there was a weekly ‘Free Palestine’ protest outside Marks and Spencer, and a street preacher shouting ‘Don’t be a sinner; be a winner!’.

The hardest thing was shopping on a budget. In my student years, I would sort of blank out all the shops because I had no access to them. Free museums, however, was amazing, and the parks. Mostly, however, I just walked to the library and the students’ union!

20 years ago I lived just off Sussex gardens in a flat share. I was used to the background noise of London. It was great walking up to Oxford street on a Saturday and chilling in Hyde Park on a Sunday. Best of all, it only cost £5 to get a cab back from town in the small hours. It wasn't the most desirable area at the time, Sussex Gardens was full of hotels where you could rent rooms for a few hours! I live in zone 2 now, so a bit quieter, but having London on. The doorstop is normal for my kids. There are downsides - we have we less space than if we moved out, especially outside space. We also don't have a car, so my kids think regular taxis/ Ubers are normal. The one thing I would if we moved is having such a wide range of shops/ restaurants/ entertainment on our doorstep. But we've just spent a few weeks with family who might not have a decent restaurant within walking distance, but have wonderful hills and walks right next to their house.

We live in Zone 1, we can walk to the city, st Pauls and the tower of London in 20-30 minutes. We can walk to hyde park, thats further about an hour at our speed.

We live on a very quiet street in a very lively part of London, so while we have lots on our doorstep our home is very quiet. If you walked my sons journey to school you probably wouldn’t think we’re in zone 1 as its quiet residential roads and a park on the twenty minute walk.

Rent/mortgage is expensive, but other costs are normal if you want them to be.

But there’s no big supermarkets so I guess all food shopping must be done in smaller (expensive) shops. No point in having a car with the tube so easy and accessible. It was the noise that spun me out.
There were sounds of people partying / cars / sirens all night long (forgot my bloody earplugs). I just couldn’t imagine living in the middle of that! On the other hand I’m just fascinated by people who do.

Most people who live in Central London are exceptionally wealthy (often foreign nationals working for investment banks) or living in council or HA properties. There aren't many of your average folk there any more.

I live on the border of zone 2 and zone 3 and a 2 bed flat to rent here is around £1800 to £2000, a 3 bed house £2,500 ish.

There simply are not any weirdly cheap properties in zone 1 (unless aforementioned council or HA).

I lived in London Zone 1 for 20 years and walked to work in the City. It’s great fun being able to buy fresh bagels at 2am from across the road and then going for a drink at a bar with a market traders licence which opened at 3am when the meat market was in full swing and closed at 2pm wen they all went home. I started out in Shoreditch (before it was trendy) which was rough, but a 10 min walk to work. My kids went to school that didn’t have a gym, playground or dining hall - no space - so they walked 2 mins to the local leisure centre for sport and walked across the road to a private square for play time. No one has or needs a car (far too painful). It’s another world. On the other hand I was mugged twice and we would have illegal raves and police helicopters in our garden square. There were quite a few celebrities around, whom we nodded to but otherwise ignored because we were too cool and London to acknowledge we were star struck.

I lived in the West End for two years as a postgraduate student, in a very tall run down house owned by the university. It was amazing to be so close to everything and basically to be able to walk everywhere and not ever have to worry about getting home. I used to queue up for cheap theatre and opera tickets on the day. Shopping was fine, there were Sainsburys. I don’t remember too much noise, but I did live right at the top (no lift so it’s a good job I was young!). As someone else said, one weirdness was the rhythms of the week: it was a very different place when the offices were open from the weekends.

One thing I do remember is that I had to wash the magnolia-painted walls in my room regularly, which I’ve never done elsewhere, because they just got constantly grimy from the air. In fact the air quality is the only thing that would put me off living in central london again, I’d do it like a shot if I could afford to.

Oh, and you get used to the noise. Sirens always. Our house was on the main cut through between two party areas and there were a lot of reveller noise. Traffic much less than you’d imagine as our roads were blocked (conservation area). Main roads were often gridlocked.

still miss it!

I used to live one street up from Sussex Gardens. I was very poor at the time! It was a large flat share, living room used as an extra bedroom to bring the cost down, very run down inside but looks great outside so you wouldn't have know from walking past was a grotty hole it was. A few years later I lived right in the middle of the city (financial district "City"), also very cheap rent.
London is a varied mix of people and places. You can have a run down street next to a fancy posh street, all people together in the local pub. That's one of the things I love about London!

I miss it too.

Its not quite true that there are no big supermarkets. In Holborn for instance there are two medium sized sainsburys. And there are bigger supermarkets just outside the centre an easy bus ride away if you need them (eg Camden, Kennington).

You definitely don’t need, or want, a car. Unless you’re super-rich and have garaging for the Rolls, I guess!

I think this too OP!

I stayed in a hotel across from Hyde Park and I spotted a woman tending to her potted plants on the terrace of her Victorian flat. I was so fascinated by her.

The thing which always amazes me when I’m in central London is that there is an actual primary school on Great Windmill St, in the heart of Soho. It has always been there, and before the area was cleaned up in the 2000s, the strip clubs & clip joints used to shut up shop for an hour around school closing time.

I'm in outer London, zone 5. I used to rent from a lady on the King's Road - mates rates - and she inherited. Back then, in the00s, I think a fair number of flats were people who had inherited.

sadly I have gone off London so my knowledge of central areas is way out if date, but I think many are now owned and occupied by wealthy foreign investors.

in terms of the noise, I live on a busy road and it's weird how it affects different properties. A place that is set back from the road and screened by trees is very different. I struggle with the noise now.

I definitely agree with getting used to the sirens. That and the helicopters. It's great having everything you could ever want at arms length.